Although author Jacques Pauw and his publishers remain defiant, legal pressure from those implicated in his book, The President’s Keepers, continues to build. Latest to join threats of legal action from the State Security Agency (SSA) and SARS is Arthur Fraser, a former DG at the spy agency, and his family, who have indicated they are seeking legal advice.

A BusinessLIVE report notes Pauw’s book has resulted in anger from many South Africans about the state of corruption and the threat by the SSA to have the books pulled and have parts of it retracted. Fraser’s family said yesterday the book includes ‘a number of scurrilous and patently false allegations about the family, which has a distinguished record in SA’s struggle for democracy, equality and justice’.

In a statement they say: ‘In his enthusiasm to influence ruling party politics and the 2019 general election, Pauw has allowed himself to be manipulated by an apartheid spy-double agent who has scores to settle – and is now hiding out in Russia. This is the man on whom Pauw largely relies for ‘evidence’ about the Fraser family contained in his book.’ They do not identify the alleged double agent.

The family specifically describes as false the claim in the book that a Fraser sister was married to intelligence officer Graham Engel, who was the manager of the Principal Agent Network programme (PAN), a top-secret state intelligence project. According to the BusinessLIVE report, Pauw writes that PAN was the brainchild of former head of domestic intelligence Manala Manzini and Fraser, who was then his deputy.

The Fraser family also denies that Arthur Fraser’s brother Barry Fraser was the director in the Galloway company which allegedly benefited financially from PAN.

According to the family, the statement that Mrs CF Fraser (83) is a PAN agent ‘would be laughable if it wasn’t so hurtful and malicious.’ They claim these and other facts in the book are ‘lies'. The Frasers say they support the principle of a free press holding the government to account and fighting corruption and the abuse of power, but that the principle does not extend to ‘the right to slander people'. BusinessLIVE says it remains unclear if and when SARS will act on its threat to take legal and criminal action against Pauw and the Sunday Times, whom the taxman says disclosed confidential taxpayers’ information with the publication of the book and an extract in the newspaper.

Full BusinessLIVE report